


devil in a yellow coat

by Ias



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Case Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 10:27:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20722697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ias/pseuds/Ias
Summary: In the weeks to come, Javert would often think of the moment on that muggy June afternoon when the knock sounded politely on his office door just two minutes past five, and he decided to invite trouble in.





	devil in a yellow coat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kaleran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaleran/gifts).

> Title taken from "Devil in a Blue Dress," by Walter Mosely, which I haven't read in years but you know I had to work the yellow coat in somehow. Happy sewerexchange, friend!

In the weeks to come, Javert would often think of the moment on that muggy June afternoon when the knock sounded politely on his office door just two minutes past five, and he decided to invite trouble in.

Javert glanced up from his paperwork, frowning. The door directly across the room from his desk was solid oak with heavy bolts which he’d thrown at exactly the hour, feeling the usual comfort of brisk efficiency at the right thing done at the right time. The door had been the deciding factor in renting this office—well, that and the fact that it was nearly all he could afford on the scraps he earned, aside from setting up a stand on the Rue— advertising cut-rate private investigative services, pay by the minute. 

But it hadn’t come to that; he’d found this place, with its door that couldn’t easily be kicked down or shot through, and Javert had been a cop for long enough in life to realize it didn’t agree with him, but also to realize that even aside from the dangers of the job, he was a man people seemed fond of shooting at. 

That wasn’t _ fine _ by him per se, but he had gotten used to it. The evidence suggested that he was neither easy nor hard to get along with, but rather impossible to; no one had ever tried for long. He didn’t mind that either, or even really notice it. 

Which was why, when the knock sounded after business hours, his first thought was not to assume it was some friendly caller hoping to chat. His first thought was in fact to do a mental inventory of his current and recent cases in case there was something in the mix worth getting shot over. It didn’t take long; there weren’t that many cases, and none of them seemed the kind of job that would send some private assassin to his door in the off hours. Well, off-minutes. Surely an assassin would have showed up at midnight, when Javert was still almost guaranteed to be at his desk.

All of these calculations took place without Javert so much as pausing in his writing. In his experience people usually made a bare effort to talk their way in before they started shooting. He at least had time to finish this paragraph. 

The knock sounded again, a little less firm. Callers from _ Le Milieu _ wouldn’t knock twice. 

“We’re closed,” Javert called, loudly enough to be heard through the thick door. For a moment there was no sound but his pen scratching on his latest batch of paperwork. Javert did not believe he had a favorite anything—he wasn’t particularly aware of having any strong preferences or sources of enjoyment at all, beyond an inclination for a single cigarette after a successful case—but in the deep recesses of his grey matter, it was possible that the quiet scritch of writing a report was a sound he rather cherished. 

He’d thought that would be the end of it. But then a quiet cough choked out from the other side of the door, and the old floorboards creaked as if under nervously shuffling feet. “It’s only five past, Monsieur. Surely—”

“The sign says nine to five,” Javert said, his voice sharp, but no sharper than it usually was. 

“I understand that, but—”

“If I open my door to you five minutes after closing I may as well open it five hours.” 

A long pause, utterly silent. Javert stared at the sentence he’d been writing, jaw clenched, trying to remember what thought he’d been in the middle of completing before this infernal interruption. “I only ask for a moment of your time, Monsieur,” the voice said at last, and with a low growl Javert set his pen down exactly parallel to the paper, and rose to get the door. 

He yanked the bolts back without opening it, and stalked back to his desk. There was a way things were done, and they were not done with him kindly getting the door for rude potential clients without the time management skills to arrive at a decent hour. They _ were _ done with him sitting behind his desk, hands folded on the wood, glaring as the door swung open. 

He had expected—well, he wasn’t sure what. Some pauper with his ratty cap in his hands who would complain of petty theft from the mouths of his five children; a rich bourgeois popinjay who would stare down his nose at Javert (or rather, up—he had met few men taller than himself) and believe that his time was inherently more valuable than that of a lowly private eye. 

The man before him resembled neither. Javert’s first impression was of muscular grace, the way he stepped into the room as carefully as a wildcat moving soundlessly through the leaf litter. He had the build of a pugilist and the clothes of a gentleman fallen on hard times, which seemed chosen to obscure the former and yet which inevitably only enhanced it. His coat was fine, but worn; when he removed his hat Javert could see the silk lining had been deftly patched. Older, a cloud of white curly hair, serious eyes. Nice eyes. The kind of eyes that looked like they’d be very kind the moment they found the barest excuse to stop being so wary. Javert didn’t trust eyes like that, though part of him liked them all the same. Difficult to tell his age; the hair said sixties, his face said younger; but the eyes. The eyes were ancient. 

It was hard to imagine what kind of trouble a man like that could get himself into that he couldn’t get himself back out of again. Certainly not the kind of trouble that could be solved with strength, nor the kind of trouble that followed on indescretion’s heels. It was difficult to imagine this man, standing with his hat gripped so carefully in those large, precise, impeccably clean hands, being indiscrete in any way. Though in truth, Javert might have liked to. 

Javert drew in a sharp, silent breath through his nose, rather taken aback at the thought. He had never once been in the habit of objectifying clients, let alone clients who insisted on showing up late asking for special treatment. In point of fact, he had never once been in the habit of objectifying _ anyone _—he’d been assured by men and women both that he was functionally a neuter, but that was usually when they were trying to sleep with him in exchange for him to drop a case or pass them some free information, and that wasn’t a bargain he was interested in even if he’d wanted sex. Which he hadn’t. It wasn’t relevant. 

It wasn’t relevant to this man either. He shouldn’t have to remind himself of that. 

“I understand this is an imposition on your time,” he said, closing the door behind him. “I’ll pay double whatever your consulting fee, if you’re willing to hear me out.” 

“I let you in, didn’t I?” Javert said. He leaned back in his chair and took note of the clock. “I charge by the minute.” 

He’d expected the man—the _ client _ , now, a crucial distinction—to put up some kind of fuss about that.They almost always did. It seemed nit-picky to them, despite the fact that Javert’s competitors would charge them for a full hour no matter how long it took. But people didn’t like it when things were fair. They liked it when things were _ easy _. Maybe that was why Javert didn’t like people so much. 

The client just sat down in the other chair and smoothed his fingers over the brim of his hat in his lap. 

“I’ll get right to it,” he said after only a moment’s hesitation. “I believe someone intends to rob me. I have heard things outside my house at night, been certain of people watching me when I leave the house. One night I heard a scream, and when I hurried to the garden my daughter said she had seen a group of men waiting outside the gate, staring at our house.” 

_ Daughter. _It was not a flicker of disappointment Javert felt—surely it was his lunch not agreeing with him. “And what did the police say?”

The client colored slightly. “I do not believe they would take my concerns seriously.” 

The catch of an untruth in that—Javert noted it, but did not push. There would be time to pick at the reason why this venerable old man did not trust the police later. “Surely you have some evidence.”

The man fiddled with his hat. “Nothing more than I’ve told you.” 

Javert steepled his fingers. There was no ulterior motive in his next question—he simply needed to know all the facts. “Are there any other members of your family who can substantiate this?”

Something flickered in the man’s eyes; a hint of some old pain. “There is no one else—only my daughter and I.” 

“Hm.” Javert did not fidget as he thought. He simply sat, staring at the man across from him, and contemplated his options. Already a flicker of intrigue began to simmer in his veins—it had been too long since he took a case like this, certainly. His other cases brought him no joy nor challenge: a long parade of jilted lovers asking for Javert to grind salt into their wounds with proof, which of course he would do without sympathy; and the thin, trembling mothers sending him chasing ghosts of their children lost for two decades or more. Sour work. Bitter work. 

But this—

Javert’s nostrils flared slightly. It’s as close as he allowed himself to the ugly spreading of his lips, the baring of his teeth in a canine grimace of anticipation. 

“Very well,” Javert said, no hint of passion coloring his cold voice. “I will accept your case on a provisional basis. Provide me with your name and address and I will stop in tomorrow to discuss things further.” 

Javert drew a piece of paper from the immaculately lined pile beside him and slid it across the desk to the man, holding out his pen. His new client leaned forward to accept it rather than stretching his arm out further. He wrote swiftly, rotated the paper, and held the pen back out to Javert. Their fingers did not brush as they exchanged it between them. 

“Well then, Monsieur—Fauchelevant,” Javert said, reading the neat, careful letters from the page. “This time will be added to your first bill. I trust you can see yourself out.” 

And with that he laid the paper on its proper pile with the other files of his open cases, and did not watch as the man left. The door clicked closed behind him; Javert waited long enough for the footsteps to move away before rising to throw the bolts with a greater sense of finality. 

As he returned to his desk and settled back down behind it, he picked up the paper again. The writing was painstakingly neat, as if the hand which wrote it had to take great care to form the letters well. On it were written two simple lines: _ No. 55 Rue Plumet - Ultime Fauchelevant. _

* * *

In the time before the meeting, Javert was kept busy. An old client came in hysterical, demanding why Javert has not yet located his missing wife; by then Javert was very nearly certain that she had taken a train to Milan with a man who does not beat her.

When he informed her husband of the direction of his investigation, the man cursed him and walked out without paying. With a tired sigh, Javert opened his ledger to cross the man’s name out. It was lucky that this new case had fallen so neatly into his lap; rent was due, and it would benefit his work performance if he did not have to forgo eating. 

He spent the rest of the morning on his inquiries, his beetle-black office phone wedged between ear and shoulder, fingers fiddling with an unlit cigarette. He would only smoke when he closed a case; for the moment he was still debating whether the issue of the runaway wife ought to count, seeing as he discovered his answer but had not been paid. In the end he tucked it back into its pack, which was clean yet worn near to velvet from its long voyage in his coat pocket, and focused on the calls. 

There was not much information to be found on this Fauchelevent. He was a member of the National Guard, and owned the house he occupied rather than renting it; he was unmarried. That gave Javert pause; for he was not only unmarried but has no record of ever being married, and the man had mentioned a daughter. That was not so strange, but it did strike him as unusual—especially when he could also find no evidence of a birth certificate for man or child. 

By the time it was midmorning, Javert felt ready to do battle. The fabric of his trench coat was worn as supple as a second skin, the leather holster—a relic from his brief stint with the police, or else he’d be rattling his piece around in a pocket with his spare change just like the rest of the the roughs on the street—nuzzled up against his ribs, a comforting weight. He didn’t expect trouble, talking to a solitary old man about a job he hadn’t even taken yet; but if trouble only ever showed up when you were expecting it, then Javert would be out of a job. 

The house was in a quiet neighborhood, and at first Javert thought he had been given a false address. The wrought iron fence surrounding the garden was like the bars of a cage at the zoo, barely keeping the ferocious ivy and wild rose bushes in check. But the hinges were well-oiled, and the gate unlocked; Javert made his way down the narrow path through the encroaching greenery, and the air was sweet and still. 

He rapped two businesslike knocks on the door twice and then stepped back. A moment later it opened to reveal Fauchelevent himself. Javert could not help but blink. The man was in his shirtsleeves, naturally; the white cloth of his shirt stretched over shoulders as broad as Javert had suspected beneath the man’s coat. His suspenders looked liked the straps that might hold the balloon of a zeppelin on the ground, straining against the sheer force they held. One of the man’s white trim eyebrows quirked.

“I was not certain when to expect you,” he said, moving aside to allow Javert to enter.

“I prefer not to be expected.” Inside, the house smelled like wood and clean linen and the lingering hint of flowers from the garden. Javert could hardly get his tiny room in the back of his office to smell of anything more than the cigarettes the woman below him chain-smoked, and the pervasive odor of rotting wood so deep in the walls it couldn’t be scrubbed out. 

Javert permitted the man to take his coat. When he turned back from hanging it on its peg, which was empty but for the one with the hideous yellow lining from the night before, Fauchelevent’s eyes lingered on the holster at Javert’s side. His expression was unreadable. As before, Javert’s instincts split in two different directions. Part of him suspected Fauchelevent was the kind of man more comfortable with those miniature spoons people used to scoop sugar their tea than anything even resembling a gun. The other thought those large hands and powerful forearms could accomplish what most people needed a weapon for. 

Javert followed the man into a modest home, eyes raking over the decor. The most ostentatious thing in the sitting room were a pair of old fashioned silver candlesticks on the mantle. Ugly, bulky looking things. Besides that, the furniture was simple and well-used, the carpets neat but worn. That wasn’t so unusual, after the war; but between the people who could afford to start living like the war hadn’t happened and those who were left with the scraps, Fauchelevent certainly belonged in the former camp. He could have afforded the overpriced imports, the price-gouged luxuries and the illusion of grandeur. Many people took shelter in that as soon as they possibly could. But not this man. 

The overall effect was drab, and yet well-cared for; there was something of a feminine touch in the thoughtfulness of the designs and the care in which their effect had been arranged. Perhaps the daughter—but no, not unless she had the soul of an old maid. Javert was willing to bet that Fauchelevent himself was to blame. It should have been difficult to imagine this quiet bear of a man picking out upholstery patterns with the care of a newlywed bride, and yet it wasn’t.

“Normally I would offer tea, but given the heat…” Fauchelevent spread his hands in apology. “Water?” 

“Yes.” Javert settled into the armchair while the man hurried off to the kitchen. An electric fan propped near the window provided more noise than air. The flowers in their vase on the table looked like they had been cut that morning, and were already beginning to wilt; the air squeezed the scent out of them like rolling up a tube of toothpaste from the bottom. The smell and the warmth and the softness of the chair made it difficult to think. It would have been easier to tilt his head back and close his eyes, and let himself be lulled by the domestic bustle from the direction of the kitchen. The torpor put him on edge rather than soothing him. He should have asked for coffee. 

Javert settled down in the sagging armchair, growing comfortable but not relaxed as Fauchelevent returned from the kitchen to press a sweating glass of ice water into Javert’s hand. Were he alone in his office he would have pressed it to his temple, but under Fauchelevent’s observation he simply drank deep. 

“So,” Javert said, resting the glass on his knee. “Where is your daughter?” 

“At school. I will need to leave to meet her shortly; I have not been permitting her to walk home alone since all of this began.” 

Javert nodded. A wise decision; if this room screamed out any single sentiment, it was that this man would do anything for his daughter. If there was indeed someone dogging his steps, Javert doubted they’d have failed to notice that too. 

Javert drained the remainder of his glass, waving off Fauchelevent’s offer to refill it. He set it on the table with a click as businesslike as the loading of a gun, and then leaned back in the armchair like it’s his own. “Tell me everything.” 

Fauchelevent did. There was not so much more to it than the brief version he relayed in Javert’s office, but the context helped. It had been two weeks now since the strangeness began, and in that time it seemed to have only gotten worse. Shadowy figures melting away as soon as they’re seen. The sound of the lock on the garden gate rattling at night. And then, most recently, his daughter’s witnessing of a group of men, probably armed, standing on the street outside with obvious ill-intent. That, of course, had been the last straw. 

“It was bad, in the early years after the occupation,” Fauchelevent continued. “But this… this feels different. Not desperation, so much as intent.”

Javert was silent a while, thinking. “Have your neighbors noticed any similarly suspicious behavior?”

Fauchelevent turned chagrined. “I have not asked. I generally keep to myself.”

“Even under threat of supposed attack by armed gang?” Javert cocked an eyebrow; Fauchelevent looked embarrassed, but offered no explanation. So. A soft-mannered recluse with the body of a carthorse and the decorating sense of a grandmother. The enigma continued. 

“Under other circumstances I would simply take up in a new apartment—nothing is worth risking my daughter,” Fauchelevent said. “But the housing shortages… Nothing is guaranteed.” 

And not so many were lucky enough to even contemplate the option of finding a new place to live. It was clear that no matter how modestly he lived, this Fauchelevent certainly had enough money to draw the interest of those who would see no reason not to take it for themselves.

“Can you think of why you would have been targeted?” Javert asked.

Fauchelevent’s expression remained neutral. “What reason would such people ever have?”

Javert shrugged, and gestured around the room. “There are many other households more opulent than yours which might lure a band of criminals to try their luck. And in my experience, it’s always personal. So if there’s some kind of boogeyman in your past that might make an appearance, better you tell me that now.”

“Nothing that I can think of, Monsieur.” Fauchelevent’s expression was a study in detached disinterest, a picture of cool reserve: but Javert had not failed to notice the tiny, near-imperceptible flicker which moved through his eyes when Javert had mentioned his past. Didn’t mean much on its own, of course. Everyone had dirty secrets. But if Fauchelevent thought he could hire a PI and keep those secrets mouldering in the dark, he was about to learn otherwise. 

Javert held up his now-empty water glass. “Would you mind?” 

“Oh, of course.” Fauchelevent leapt to the task; Javert was accustomed to people using any excuse to not be in a room alone with him, but in this case the man seemed interested only in being a good host. In the silence of his absence, Javert was free to contemplate: there wasn’t much to go on in this case but a worried father’s paranoid delusions, with absolutely no outside testimony to back them up. 

But Fauchelevent seemed clear-headed enough, even if there was an air of wariness that shadowed his every word and move. Not flighty; just cautious. Not exactly trusting, either. Javert respected that. And there was some small yet persistent part of himself—the part which craved authority and clear orders and the acknowledgement of his betters—which wanted to prove himself worthy of that hard-won trust.

Javert shook his head slightly. He should be spending less time trying to psychoanalyze his client and more time thinking about the case itself, and he sure as hell shouldn’t be thinking of Fauchelevent as a man he needed to impress. Still, there was something about him. Something which made his hackles rise at the same time he wanted to listen to whatever the old man had to say. Javert distrusted that instinct on principle. 

As Fauchelevent returned with the sweating glass in hand, Javert found his eyes working their way from the ground up; up the stout, muscular thighs in their worn yet well-tailored pants, the barrel-chest, the powerful arms and the broad hand with the shine of water droplets sliding from the glass over the knuckles—and then up to his eyes, soft hazel and kind and yet seeing far too much. A hot curl of vague embarrassment squirmed in Javert’s stomach as he accepted the glass, two fingers around the rim, fastidious in not allowing his fingers to touch Fauchelevent’s. 

“I’m taking your case,” Javert said without preamble as Fauchelevent settled back down. “The first step will be to gather more information. I will need full access to your house and its yards, a copy of your and your daughter’s daily schedules to memorize, and information about all entrances and exits on the property. I’ll also need access to all of your files and paperwork—”

“No.”

Javert blinked. Up until the last, Fauchelevent had seemed more than willing to play along. Now his expression had hardened into something more befitting the body that wore it. “I cannot give you access to my private documents,” he said, quiet but firm. “There is nothing there for you to find, besides; it will make no difference to your investigation.”

Javert held his gaze. He could argue, of course, and in plenty of other cases he would have. He found it easy to bulldoze over people’s protestations about this kind of thing. But one look at Fauchelevent’s face told him that he’d have better luck chiselling through a brick wall with a toothpick. The man was immovable. Javert wanted to move him. 

He should drop this case. That knowledge shimmered to the front of his brain like a mirage. But like a mirage, the will to do so disappeared as soon as he began moving towards it. He _ wanted _ the case. Wanted to chip down beneath that smooth facade and find the ugliness that always lurked beneath; wanted Fauchelevent to _ know _ that he could. 

Because that wasn’t a dangerous impulse to chase at all. 

“Fine,” Javert said, with a smile that could have curled milk as he set his glass of water . “But you should know, Fauchelevent, that I always get to the bottom of things.”

“I should hope so, Monsieur,” Fauchelevent said without a flicker of unease. “That’s what I'm hiring you to do.” 

Javert’s smile remained fixed on his face. For a moment he held Fauchelevent’s gaze, in the silence and the warmth of the room, something between them flashed like a lit cigarette in a paper factory. And then Javert stood; he nodded stiffly to the other man as he rose.

“I will be in contact in three day’s time, once I have gathered more information,” Javert said. He did not offer his hand to shake. “Good day, Monsieur.” 

Still Fauchelevent’s eyes drilled into him, no softness in them left to speak of. “Good day, Inspector.” 

Javert saw himself out, the heat of the unseasonable summer closing around him like a fist. He barely felt it. His hand still clenched around the sensation of cool water droplets slicking his palm, and his mind was bent on the promise of a hunt. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally intended to be multichapter, but I think for now I'm going to consider it just a little vignette in a fun AU. Because Javert objectifying Valjean noir-intro-style is pretty much the entire point, right?


End file.
